


you know my love goes on forever and ever and ever

by Jay815



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Laura dies, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2637389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay815/pseuds/Jay815
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>danny x carmilla embark on some travelling after laura passes</p><p>post-everything</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know my love goes on forever and ever and ever

If you’re being honest with yourself, you’re surprised that she came back.

When you come home a week after Laura’s cremation, the house had been stiller and more silent than usual. You know she’s left. It almost surprises you that it had taken this long. She had barely made it through the wake and the ceremony.

As the smoke churned its way into the sky, you had held her hand tightly, and her grip had been tender, but her eyes had been vacant.

You didn’t expect a note, so its lack shouldn’t disappoint you, but it does.

And then for seven weeks, it’s just you and Laura’s urn sitting on the mantle. Unable to face the empty king-size bed and its expanse of space, you'd moved to the green, squishy couch in front of the fireplace. If you weren’t going to sleep, you thought, you might as well be near Laura. For seven weeks, you went through the motions of eating and sleeping, although generally, you passed these moments in a haze, and you don’t think you accomplish either with any particular skill.

You miss them both, and on nights where the empty halls feel more oppressive than usual, you wonder if you’ll be reunited with Laura or Carmilla first, and you can’t bring yourself to answer.

So when one night, when you wake from another half-trance that’s isn’t quite sleep to find her sitting on the arm of the couch, you’re _grateful_ to see her, and you hate her for that for a second, for wearing her grief like a mantle that only fits her shoulders.

She’s drunk, too, and you might be old _(_ old _er_ , you wince) now, but you don’t need your wolf nose to smell the alcohol that’s pretty much replaced all of the blood in her bloodstream.

She might be nearly four centuries old, but most of the time, Carmilla is just a goddamn _teenager_.

As you sit up, you feel much older than you are, and you think that you’re going to feel much older by the time you get through the chiding that sits on the tip of your tongue, struggling against your seven weeks of worry and loneliness, anger and anguish.

Carmilla stops you by sliding under the blanket with you and, a hand around your waist, cups your face with her other hand. Your reprimand gets stuck in your throat as you reach up to trace her sunken cheekbones, brush a thumb over the deep hollows under her eyes.

“You came back,” falls out of your mouth, and you’re embarrassed at the slight quaver in your voice.

Carmilla’s voice is steady when she mumbles back, “I missed you both.”

/

The next morning, you stretch slowly against the kitchen countertop. You’re incredibly limber for 78, (sometimes, when you look at Perry and LaFontaine, the wolf inside you feels a little bit guilty), but the couch isn’t roomy enough for two people to comfortably sleep, although in earlier years you somehow managed three.

You watch Carmilla sleepily rouse herself at the beep of the coffee machine, and you put a large mug that’s only a quarter coffee but just as dark as your own onto the counter.

Carmilla pulls herself up onto the edge of the high stool and sips appreciatively.

You wait patiently, a trait you have finally cultivated after years of living with two people who try it often.

When she opens her mouth, she says, “I’m going on a very, very long trip, and I’m taking Laura with me," and your heart almost stops.

Your expression, you’re sure, is absolutely stricken, but probably also angry.

Carmilla shakes her head slightly, and takes your hand in hers. Her grip is firm, certain. “I want you to come with me. I,’ she falters slightly, then determinedly goes on, ‘I want to scatter some of her ashes on every part of this planet we find that is as beautiful and awe-inspiring and amazing as she is, but that’s going to take a long time and a lot of travelling, and I don’t want to do it alone, so come with me." 

You are suddenly acutely aware of how crinkled the skin of your hand looks clasped in her smooth pale hand, of how more days than not you find another grey hair on your pillow. The twinge in your back from weeks of sleeping on the couch nudges you, reminds you that supernatural or not, unlike Carmilla, you do still _age_ , and you only have one lifetime, slightly protracted though it might be.

You’ve always known she’ll outlive you, you all always knew she’d outlive both of you, but with Laura gone, your own mortality seems more distinct than ever.

“Danny. Could you really stay here?”

Through the pain in her voice, you hear the unsaid _without her_ at the end of her question.

/

You start with Scotland, and it takes you almost two years to get through all of it on foot. So far, you’ve opened Laura’s urn eight times, and of those times, you and Carmilla only reached into it six times.

You’d spent a few quiet months traversing the Highlands, letting your nose take you through the forests. You were spending more and more time in wolf form, and, quietly following in your wake, you think Carmilla seems to prefer it that way. You do too. Almost tireless, huge, furry and warm, you could nuzzle into Carmilla’s side and leave the unspoken things be. 

On a night that feels darker than usual, Carmilla, though she doesn’t mind the cold, had curled up against your flank, hands and face pressed into your shaggy rust-red coat. You were still, eyes half-shut, listening to all the small, muted noises embedded in the silence around you. Lying on a bed of pine, catching a whiff of damp oak floating over from the southeast, you suddenly understand the Liechtenstein faction of werewolves who stay in wolf form permanently.

"It’s so quiet,’ Carmilla murmurs, barely audible.

You lightly prick up your ears.

“I’d almost forgotten, after over half a century spent in civilisation. I’d almost forgotten how quiet it can be, how beautiful it is.”

You’re quiet, waiting.

“How lonely." 

Carmilla shifts then, re-settling herself between your head and shoulder, half-disappearing into your dense fur. She tangles her fingers into it.

“Danny,’ she starts carefully, ‘do you ever wonder if, these places we choose… Do you wonder if Laura gets lonely?”

You angle your head away from her slightly. You’ve thought about it, of course. The two of you are visiting some of the most isolated places on the planet, places that, in human form, you wouldn’t even dream of reaching. Places that make even Carmilla falter and reach out to grip your fur tightly, where you surrender to the wolf’s instincts and balance. It’s been weeks since you’ve seen a person’s face besides Carmilla’s. These places are tucked away, hidden, unmarred. They’re few and far between. They’re peaceful, undisturbed and unlikely to be disturbed, considering the international move towards letting nature reclaim itself.

These places are beautiful, and lonely, and sometimes they remind you more of Carmilla than of Laura, but you say nothing. Often, lying on her back under the stars, a gentle, shy smile tugs at the corners of Carmilla’s lips, and although you love Laura, you love Carmilla, and _she’s_ alive, so if she’s happy, you think Laura would be happy too, even if her ashes were scattered are scattered in some of the loneliest places on earth.

You shake your head once and rest your muzzle on Carmilla’s lap.

Her hand moves to stroke your head, lightly brushing over your ears, and you feel yourself beginning to fall into the half-conscious dream state that you spend most of your nights now in. 

Distantly, you hear Carmilla murmur, “Even if she gets lonely, she won’t be for long. She’ll have you. I’ll come back, you know, and make sure of that.” 

You expel a puff of air and gaze up at her with a half-lidded eye. _What about you, Carmilla? Will you be lonely?_

/

You’re sitting on the edge of the shoreline, in human form for once, arms wrapped around the rucksack. You pull your parka tighter around you to block the wind, realising that lately, you’ve spent so long in your wolf form that you’ve nearly forgotten what it’s like to be cold _and_ be physically averse to it.

The sun’s just beginning to set when you catch a whiff of a snuffed out candle flame. Smiling, you turn around and raise your eyebrows.

“I send you to get one serving of pad Thai and you come back with…?” 

Carmilla smirks and settles herself down next to you, passing the bottle of red wine and the warm plastic container over. Ripping open a packet of cookies, she stuffs one in her mouth, accepting the thermos of blood from you with her other hand.

You move the rucksack away, letting Carmilla fit more snugly against your side.

You raise the bottle and toast the sunset.

“Happy birthday, Laura.”

“Happy birthday, cupcake.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This just kind of happened.


End file.
